Necmiye Ozay receives CAREER award for research in cyber-physical systems

Prof. Necmiye Ozay, assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was awarded an NSF CAREER award for her research project, “A Compositional Approach to Modular Cyber-Physical Control System Design.” This research is applicable to a wide variety of safety-critical and autonomous systems, including next generation air vehicles, automotive systems, robotics and smart manufacturing.

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) can be described as smart, networked systems with embedded sensors, processors and actuators that are designed to interact with the physical world. Complex, networked, distributed CPSs are emerging in many safety-critical application domains, such as aerospace and automotive.

Because scientific design methodologies are lacking, the design of these complex systems currently relies heavily on the insights and experiences of engineers . As a result, extensive testing and fine-tuning is required to ensure that the final product satisfies the design objectives. This testing is time-consuming and expensive. With systems becoming increasingly complex and often involving personal safety, the need for a scientifically sound method to design these systems has become critical.

Prof. Ozay plans to develop the scientific foundation and associated algorithmic tools for the design of modular cyber-physical control systems. The ultimate goal is a “plug and play” integration framework for CPSs supported by automated design tools, where one can replace a subsystem with another one or perform upgrades to subsystems without the need for lengthy testing afterwards. If successful, this method of designing CPSs will transform the industry.

Prof. Ozay’s research interests include dynamical systems, control, optimization and formal methods with applications in cyber-physical systems, system identification, verification and validation, and autonomy and vision. Her teaching has focused on linear systems theory, control systems, and hybrid systems.

She has received several conference paper awards and a DARPA Young Faculty Award. She was selected as an Outstanding Reviewer of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, and is a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society Technical Committee on Computational Aspects of Control System Design.

Additional Information

NSF CAREER Award Posting of Prof. Ozay’s award

The CAREER grant is one of the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards, conferred for “the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.”

Prof. Ozay’s award is in the NSF Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS).